In recent years, there has been a great deal of debate over what constitutes guest room attrition. However, a fundamental issue at the heart of every hotel agreement is seldom addressed with any degree of specificity, and rarely incorporated into a group's hotel contract. And that issue is defining, for contractual purposes, who is a meeting's "attendee." This is especially important in today's meetings environment, where, due to the explosive growth of Web-based reservation services, more and more Internet-savvy attendees are booking their guest rooms online (outside the group's guest room block) in order to get a deal and save some money.
To overcome any foreseeable attrition obstacles and to avoid protracted disputes centering on who is and who is not an attendee after the meeting has ended, planners should give serious consideration to incorporating a "Definition of an Attendee" provision in their hotel contracts. The clause you draft should clearly and concisely address the issue of who an attendee is for purposes of attrition and any other contractual provisions linked to or affected by a group's total guest room pickup. An example of this type of provision is as follows:
For purposes of this Agreement, "Attendee" means any individual associated with the [Meeting], including [Group's] and its affiliated organization's directors, employees, representatives, agents, speakers, exhibitors, members, delegates, guests, invitees, contractors, and subcontractors with guest room accommodations at [Hotel], regardless of how the guest room reservations were made or accepted by [Hotel].
If you desire a more illustrative provision, you can consider adding the following clause to the end of the last sentence:
". . . including without limitation guest room reservations accepted through [Group's] official housing service contractor, [Hotel's] reservation system, any Web sites and e-commerce sites on the Internet/World Wide Web, travel agents and corporate travel departments, or any other reservations portals."
A provision like this makes it very clear to all of the parties that even though some of your attendees have reserved guest rooms outside of the group's guest room block, these room-nights will still be credited towards the group's overall guest room night usage. This, in turn, will diminish your exposure to attrition fees, since you've been able to broaden your universe of who your attendees really are.
Mark Roysner, attorney at law with Roysner and Associates, specializes in the exhibition and meetings industry. Questions can be e-mailed to him at
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